March 19, 2012

Inter-Galactic Worldwide Experientiator Predicts End Of Advertising

Just when you think every meatball who has predicted the end of advertising has either been exiled, jailed, or sent to the permanent rotating 4A's conference on "transformation," up pops another one.

This one is the "Global Brand Experience Manager" for Facebook. I'm pretty sure everything you need to know about him is explained in his title.

According to this guy, traditional advertising and marketing are nearing their end and they will be replaced by "many lightweight interactions." Well, if anyone should know about "lightweight interactions" it's Facebook.

We have all read this same "advertising is dead" nonsense 1,000 times over the past decade, and the idea that someone is still spouting it is a pretty good tribute to the enduring power of dimness.

It's hard to believe that anyone would publish another article entitled Is The End Near For Traditional Advertising? but there it is at a website called The Daily Dose, which is apparently run by Entrepreneur magazine. The perpetrators of The Daily Dose apparently live in some kind of upper-crust twit dream world...

"Much like the way we develop friendships over a period of time, an entire generation of advertisers will need to plan their marketing scenarios around the concept of building relationships. We often meet new acquaintances through friends. We chat them up, maybe catch them later at a party with other mutual acquaintances, discover we have similar interests, and, before you know it, we’re all packed up and off on a weekend ski trip together in Vermont."

How absolutely charming. We're all cozy and snug in our little weekend ski chalet in Vermont.

Gag me with a snow board.

I swear, these "marketing relationship" doofuses have left orbit. They are so far out of touch with the real behavior of real people that you can't even write parodies any more. The originals are more ridiculous.

The Dose goes on to say...

"...we can begin...by subtly promoting our brands in passing -- as an aside to a bigger discussion or conversation...lightweight, not heavyweight. With the advent of the World Wide Web, there’s so much information out there for us to absorb and so little time to absorb it. As a result, the best way to introduce new products, content or ideas to consumers will be seamlessly, naturally and subtly through word-of-mouth interactions."

If I may rewrite that sentence, it ought to read like this...

"With the advent of the World Wide Web, there’s so much information out there for us to absorb and so little time to absorb it... that we really need to hit people over the fucking head more forcefully and relentlessly than ever."

Most of these "relationship" goobers couldn't sell a nose ring to a barista. As George Tannenbaum brilliantly put it last week...

"They are the the great un-accountables who produce nothing but hot air, nothing that lives and breathes, nothing that has an impact in the market. Nothing you can pin down."

But hell, who's got time for that when all your fabulous ski friends are waiting for you up in Vermont?

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Creative people make the ads. Everyone else makes the arrangements."

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

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"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

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"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."